PLME Parents' Handbook

Welcome, Parents!

By any measure, students at Brown University are exceptional. While each class is a portrait of diversity, the individual members do have one thing in common: extraordinary promise. Yet even among such a superb student body, PLME students stand out here. As freshmen, few of their classmates have as clear a picture of the future — or of the role that they will play in making it better.

For highly motivated students, Brown’s Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME) offers a unique opportunity to combine undergraduate education and professional studies in medicine in a single eight-year program. It is the only combined baccalaureate-MD program in the Ivy League, and a major route of admission to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

The PLME is not an accelerated medical program. Rather, its goal is to encourage students to take full advantage of the breadth of a liberal arts education, to personalize their studies, and to become active learners. The PLME is an application of Brown’s open curriculum concept, which has been so successful at the undergraduate level. Flexibility is built into the program, enabling PLME students to pursue their interests in great depth—be they in the humanities, social sciences, natural or biological sciences, or the arts—even as they prepare for the rigors of medical school and for careers as physicians or medical scholars.